Ron Stutts is Back and (Almost) Better than Ever!

This Week: A native of Hickory NC, Adele McLean is a business executive and consultant who has spent more than three decades helping Fortune 500 companies, healthcare organizations, and nonprofits solve complex operational challenges. With a business degree and Master of Accounting from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill she has built a career leading organizational change, improving performance, and helping teams tackle difficult problems. Today, Adele is applying that same business mindset to exploring how communities can use data, measurement, and collaboration to create greater economic opportunity for everyone. Adele served on the BOD of the United Way of Chatham County and as consultative counsel to the former Director of United Way to support the development of the Bold Goal. Adele is an active volunteer with the Salvation Army, where she provides financial mentoring and budgeting workshops to community members. In partnership with others, she is helping develop the strategic business case for a Chatham County Community Resource Center to improve access to coordinated community services.

This Week: Dan Kane is an award-winning investigative journalist for the Raleigh, NC newspaper The News & Observer. Kane, with whistleblower Mary Willingham, is credited for unearthing substantive academic fraud regarding student-athletes who were directed towards phony classes, according to allegations. Kane also covered NCSU, legislative corruption, and the formation of the state lottery. His reporting on NC’s secretive personnel law exposed how the state kept much information about state employees from public scrutiny, which led to a new state law to expedite information-gathering about the pay and performance of state employees. He is a 1983 graduate of Saint John Fisher College in Rochester, NY.

This Week: Bryan Kennedy is the four-term mayor of Glendale, Wisconsin, a former university professor and labor leader, and an advocate for strengthening democracy through local organizing. He is the author of It’s All Local: Saving Democracy From the Ground Up, which explores how communities can rebuild trust, bridge political divides, and renew civic engagement through personal connections and local organizing. Kennedy serves on the Democratic National Committee and is President of Democratic Municipal Officials, a national DNC affiliate organization working to elect and support Democratic local elected leaders. He founded the It’s All Local Foundation to help communities foster meaningful conversations, strengthen relationships, and rebuild democracy from the ground up.

This Week: Steve Rao is a partner at State Federal Strategies, a government relations and lobbying firm, focused on assisting technology companies on their government sales strategies, and is also a Political Analyst on PBS Carolinas Statelines and Black Issues Forum, and hosts the Leaders and Legends Podcast on Radio Nyra, the Triangle's largest growing South Asian Radio Station. 

This Week: Jason Damico is a 2x Carolina Music Award winner, 18-time GRAMMY®-considered artist, SAG-AFTRA actor, producer, and content creator based in North Carolina. Known for blending blues-rock roots with thoughtful songwriting, his work spans music, film, podcasting, and digital media. He is the founder of New Blue Entertainment, an independent recording studio and production house, as well as creator and host of The Jason Damico Show, where he has interviewed hundreds of guests from the worlds of entertainment, business, sports, politics, and faith. Damico's music has been featured in the feature film Laws of Man, and his growing online audience continues to expand through a combination of original music, storytelling, and comedy content.

This Week: Born into a blue collar and agricultural clan in rural Pennsylvania, Dr. Jim Crawford was the first in his family to graduate from college. Earning his PhD from the University of North Carolina, he taught US and World History at several universities in the piedmont North Carolina for several decades. He served as chairman of the Chatham County board of commissioners. He is a firm believer in American democracy and trusts that the constitution will hold firm now as it has in past crises despite the broken, distempered electorate.

This Week: Lou Jewell has enjoyed 32 years in the land brokerage business and is licensed in North Carolina and Virginia. He's an accredited land consultant with Land Pro Real Estate, Inc., has been an instructor for "Land 101" with RLI since 2003, and teaches 4 Land Educational Courses through Land Masters. Jewell is the author of "An Insider's Guide to Land Investment" and has eight other books about land in the works. He's recorded almost 300 one-hour podcasts called Let's Talk Land which his available on Spotify & Podbean. Jewell was awarded the 2010 NC RLI Land Realtor of the Year award and the 2018 RLI Carolinas Chapter Realtor of the Year award. He is a former 2nd Lieutenant in the NC Army National Guard.

This Week: Lacey Beaty is an American politician, combat veteran, and the current mayor of Beaverton, Oregon. She took office in 2021 as the first female and youngest mayor in Beaverton history, after serving six years as city councilor. Before entering politics, Beaty served five years of active duty in the 1st Infantry Division of the United States Army as a radiology specialist and combat medic during the Iraq War. She has also worked in public health, overseeing school-based health centers. Beaty has identified the homelessness crisis and the welfare of veterans as priority issues for her administration.  John Ewing Jr. is an American politician, minister, and former police officer who has served as the 52nd Mayor of Omaha Nebraska, since 2025. Prior to his election as mayor, Ewing served for twenty-five years in the Omaha Police Department until his retirement as a deputy police chief. As a proud native of North Omaha, Mayor Ewing knows firsthand the life-changing impact of affordable housing. When he was 15 his parents bought the family's first home that shaped his perspective forever. He is the proud husband to Dr. Viv Ewing, a devoted father, and a grandfather. Ewing is the first African American to be elected mayor of Omaha.

This Week: After three decades of work in global public health, Cindy Waszak Geary (Hillside Class of ’73) turned to creative non-fiction writing, weaving together personal experience with social and cultural histories. Her first book, Going to School in Black and White, co-authored with LaHoma Smith Romocki, describes how they as two teenage girls—one black, one white—each were altered by a court-ordered desegregation plan for Durham, NC in 1970. She recently published a second book, also a memoir, Ancestral Landscapes. A graduate of UNC-CH, she has continued to live in Chapel Hill most of her adult life, and now also spends part of her time in the mountains of western NC, where she has deep ancestral roots. She is the mother of Emily and Max and the grandmother of Daisy. LaHoma Romocki has held senior leadership global health positions with extensive field experience in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Romocki has an undergraduate degree from Duke University, both masters and PHD from UNC-CH. She is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Public Health Education at NCCU. Romocki is working to build the capacity of the next generation of the public health workforce and health care administrators. She has led study abroad programs and advises students interested in pursuing careers in the health. She is a resident of Granville County and is active in many organizations throughout the community.

This Week: Brad Bannon is a national political strategist and the host of the progressive podcast "Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon" that features the very best in aggressive progressive, must-see online TV. Guests on the show are prominent people and players from the worlds of politics and policy. Bannon is also the author of "The Bannon Ballot Blast "on his Substack page . As the CEO of Bannon Communications, he has advised Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups on polling and message development for decades. His clients have included the National Education Association, the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.